The good, the bad and the ugly

The virtues of Mad Men
 Korea

This episode features some of the good and the very worst of this show. I'll start with the very worst and mention the good in a later post.

We finally learn, in this episode, what the Don's big secret is. It's a MacGuffin but that is for the later post.

Here is the big concept: Dick Whitman switched identities with another soldier named Donald Draper in Korea when that other soldier is killed. Complications ensue.

Imagine you know nothing about the plot, that this is a proposal for a  still unfilmed show. How would you have the real Donald Draper be killed? Well, why not have him be killed by the enemy. That is the way most combat deaths and other casualties happen after all.

Well, that wouldn't do here because this show at its worst feels a need to cater to the illusions of Matt Weiner.

So, for starters, we have to begin with a portrayal of military incompetence. Never mind that the actual performance of the American military is almost always exceptionally competent. It isn't perfect but the US military is by far the most competent armed forces in the entire world today. No one else even comes close. And that was true during the Korean war too. You can question the performance of the top brass and the politicians, but the troops in Korea performed with exemplary bravery and competence. In the end, larger strategic considerations driven by increasing involvement of China and the Soviet union dictated a non-military solution.

But that is not what your average television writer thinks they know about Korea. What they believe is chiefly derived from a spoiled brat of a military doctor who wrote a comic novel that was the inspiration for a film and television series called M*A*S*H.

One qualification. As always, it isn't quite clear if the series is being intentionally or unintentionally subversive. Why? Well, the book M*A*S*H: A novel about three army doctors was written by a former military surgeon and it is about a military surgeon who just happens to be brilliant at his trade, sexually irresistible to women and generally wonderful in all ways even though he is surrounded by incompetents. He also gets his thrills by brilliantly—cause everything he does he does brilliantly—playing fast and loose around army rules. And this episode just happens to feature a subplot where a play written by Paul Kinsey that features a lead character obviously based on Kinsey himself who is brilliant, sexually magnetic et cetera.

So Mad Men could be a terribly clever put down of boomer illusions. Or it could be an accidental put down of boomer illusions.

Either way, the place that supposed military incompetence has landed  Private Dick Whitman is a field hospital under construction. They don't actually call it the 4077th because that would be too obvious. And everything about the war is portrayed as a SNAFU.

But anyone who is going to portray others as incompetent buffoons has to at least suggest a minimal expertise themselves and the scene in which the real Donald Draper dies fails on every front.

Let's start with a  short synopsis. We see Dick Whitman digging a trench. Donald Draper comes out of his tent just as some sort of shell (presumably a mortar) comes whistling down and bursts. Both men hide in the trench until the short attack is over. Afterward they both light cigarettes. Draper points out that Whitman has wet his pants and when Whitman looks he drops his lighter which lands on some flammable liquid in the bottom of the trench. The flames rapidly spread. Both men run but the flames spread to something that explodes in a  big way killing Draper and injuring Whitman.

What's wrong with this?

For starters, flammable liquids aren't. That is to say that it is actually the vapour coming off the surface of the liquid that burns. If there really was flammable liquid spilled all over the ground the whole place would have stunk of diesel or gasoline or whatever it was. The original Donald Draper is supposed to have been an engineer. He would not have lit up  cigarette or let anyone else do so in that situation.

The second problem is even worse. How did the flammable liquid get into the bottom of the trench? Assuming Whitman didn't hit oil three feet down, it has to have gotten sprayed there when a barrel near the trench was hit during the attack. But both men were lying in the trench! If the trench has flammable liquid in it, they both have to be covered with it.  They should both catch fire.

And what the heck is it that explodes so conveniently. And quickly too! How odd that having mortar shells exploding all around this volatile stuff doesn't set it off but a dropped lighter manages to do it. And the stuff doesn't burn a while and then explode. Whatever it is goes off instantly. Why exactly do guys digging trenches for a field hospital some distance from enemy lines (they don't build these things anywhere else) need to have huge piles of something very explosive lying around?

Finally, why does the original Donald Draper run towards whatever it is that is most likely to explode while Dick Whitman is the one who has the sense to run towards safety?

This scene is craptacular from beginning to end. It's poorly thought out, poorly acted and utterly unrealistic. It's bad enough to be a Bruce Willis movie. The people who put this scene together either didn't care even a tiny bit about accuracy or they don't care a bit about insulting the intelligence of their audience.

Hildy
It is during this episode that Harry Crane and Hildy have sex. Having complained before that sexual relationships happen far too easily and frequently on the show, I should say that I find this particular coupling convincing. This sort of thing does happen at office parties and the out of character behaviour on the part of both these two is believable.

What is troubling is the nudity. Not that it happens, but that it unusually happens in this scene. Every single sex scene featuring the principal actors does not require them to do much revealing. So why is it that a scene featuring an actress in a relatively minor role with only guest status has what I believe are the most revealing shots in the entire series? Watch the scene again and compare it with others. Is there any remotely credible reason for showing us two shots of McNiven's breasts when there has not been for any other such shots in sex scenes in the series. What special dramatic need was there here that would allow us to conclude that this wasn't a case of a  junior member of the crew being pressured to do something no senior member would be required to do?

I really would not like to think that Julie McNiven's lower status on the crew meant that it was okay to push for her to reveal more than the big stars. Because if it was, that kind of erodes the credibility of the show in criticizing the exploitative attitudes of back then doesn't it?

Okay, I'm being a little cute here. Of course I think she did the scene because she has lower status on the show. The pressure need not have been overt because she would not need to have anyone explain it to her.

Does anyone think even for a second that the entertainment industry has anything even vaguely resembling moral authority to criticize the sexual exploitation of women by the advertising industry of the early 1960s? Compare the sorts of ads that the entertainment industry cheerfully runs on television today and the roles female actors are asked to perform.

If you are joining me here, this series starts here.

The next post in the series is here.